


Romance Novel

by selftaughthuman



Series: Words by the Thousand [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selftaughthuman/pseuds/selftaughthuman
Summary: Roughly canon - 2000 words.
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Series: Words by the Thousand [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134245
Kudos: 86





	Romance Novel

They’re sitting on the couch together, Korra’s head resting on her thigh while Asami pets her. Having grown up with thick tresses herself, she touches Korra’s by idly smoothing in lieu of combing. It is as instinctual as the contact they seek without intention. Touch between them is subtle and warm, forming collections of calm just beneath their conscious attention. The silken feel of Korra’s hair on the backs of her fingers as they stroke a path from temple to ear, it is one such pool of peace.

Her girlfriend hasn’t moved in some time, has her eyes closed, and Asami assumes she is napping. With Korra’s comforting weight motionless on her leg, she reads. Not a proposal or project notes, but for pleasure. She’s not had time for a hobby in what feels like years. This tale of romance was given to her by Pema. From the wear evident in softened corners and roughed pages, she would estimate it’s been read approximately two hundred times. The mindless love story is keeping her attention without taxing it, is charming in its trashiness and predictability. 

She is close to the end of the fairytale-like yarn. The warrior and his love interest have just stabled his noble steed, having escaped the snowy mountains where barbarian kidnappers held her captive. Asami suspects there will be a love scene when they enter his castle. With half-abashed amusement, she notices her curiosity and excitement climbing with each turn of the page. Asami does not delude herself over it, accepts that reading an erotic scene for her evokes the illicit thrill of a thing forbidden. The anticipation reminds her of stealing her father’s liquor as a young teen, not much of a risk, but rather a short-lived burst of triumphant deviance.

“Do you think we would’ve gotten together if I wasn’t the Avatar?” Korra’s interrupts, apparently not asleep. 

Flipping the book upside down and still open over the arm of the couch, Asami glances down at her lover quizzically.

“I’d like to think so.” It is hard to imagine how it would’ve happened, but her freshly nourished sense of romanticism insists it would’ve unfolded one way or another.

The answer seems to please Korra if the resultant nuzzling into her leg is any indication. “Good. Me too.” It is murmured through the tail end of a yawn against the fabric of her pants. 

“What made you ask me that?” She inquiries gently, tucking a lock of soft hair behind the other woman’s ear.

That incredibly soft skin stretching over cartilage and bent into such specific shapes...ears are fascinating from both sensory and structural angles. Beyond that, Asami thinks they’re adorable for undefinable reasons, perhaps only because they belong to Korra. She allows herself one more trace of the helix before she abandons them.

Rolling onto her back, Korra’s blue eyes find hers and Asami does not understand the thoughtfulness there. The confusion must show on her face. “Nothing. Just that book. The whole typical hero and his lady thing. I didn’t know you were into that stuff.”

“I wanted something I didn’t have to think about.” She comments easily and mostly unashamed.

“If the cheesy cover is anything to go by, you found it,” Korra answers with a playfully accusing laugh.

She glances down at the fantastically rendered watercolor adorning the book’s front, unbothered. Coincidentally the scene seems to be close to where she left off in the story. The dark-haired hero is atop his trusted mount, holding his love close in front of him, his arm around her waist. His chiseled profile is home to a blazing blue gaze, his longish hair is unbound and flowy while he assesses the danger behind them. It’s very dramatic, but that is in keeping with the genre.

The irony of the pose strikes her suddenly, makes Asami smile to herself. “Looks a little familiar.”

“ _That_?!” Korra asks incredulously, arching back to snatch the item and scrutinizing the cover. “When did some guy carry you off into the sunset on an ostrich horse?!”

It was neither _‘some guy’_ , nor was she the one being _‘carried off’_. She and Korra were in the same position depicted, but it was her arm wrapped around the woman’s unconscious body as she pushed Naga to a full run. It was such a high stakes situation, grave consequences looming in every direction. She’d never much reflected on that night, not with the general unpleasantry of the events which followed. But this book’s art, if the two of them riding on Naga was remotely reminiscent of that romantic spectacle…

She fought the heat flaring on the back of her neck with some levity. “It happens to every girl at some point, doesn’t it? It’s like a rite of passage really, being whisked away by a hero.” Her joke is to mask the twinge of embarrassment she cannot shake.

“Yeah, must’ve missed that one.” Her girlfriend is skeptical, runs fingers absently along the book’s weathered binding.

“You didn’t miss it. You weren’t aware of it.”

Korra tilts her head back in a snap, bewildered and stuttering. “Uh…how?! What, was I unconscious?!”

Lifting a brow down at her girlfriend, she exhales before answering. “More or less.”

“Who was my cover guy? Mako or Bolin?” Asami feels the wrinkling in her forehead, unsure exactly how she feels over the assumption. As Korra studies her, the woman begins to frown, to pout really, and crosses arms beneath her chest moodily. “It was my dad or Tenzin wasn’t it?” Her girlfriend is so profoundly disappointed by the grumbled notion that Asami can’t hold back a smile. “Figures.”

“It was me actually...and Naga.” She reveals and Korra’s eyes fix on hers, wide and rapt. 

“…was that during the whole Misty Palms thing?” The quietness of the question and slight hesitation there make her avert her gaze while she explains.

“You were still in the spirit world. We were trying to get you out of there when the Red Lotus found us. Mako and Bolin fought them and I left on Naga with you. It was right before the Earth Queen’s forces captured us.” Asami lets their eyes meet again. “I’m not sure if you remember, but we talked about it before they stuck us on that airship.”

They did talk briefly about how they’d gotten into their predicament after Korra awoke in those horrible bindings.

“Yeah, I remember talking.” Her girlfriend breathes. “And I know you got me out on Naga, but I didn’t…” Staring down at the book still in her hand, Korra points. “Were you holding me like _that_?!”

It is almost identical in fact. “It was the safest way I could think of. Did you think we just slung you over Naga’s back like a supply sack?” She chides.

“Kinda, yeah.” The admission is buried inside a laugh and the mental picture is comical, but not something she would’ve allowed. “That explains why you said _‘it looks familiar’_ ,” Korra adds, eyes tracing the front of the novel one more time. There seems a smidge of longing in those eyes. “I can’t believe I missed that!!”

Asami is disproportionately pleased by the disclosure. “I thought it was too cheesy?”

“The idea’s growing on me,” Korra confesses with a lopsided grin, the cockiness of waggling brows opposed by a pretty blush, as she hands the story back to Asami. “Guess that makes you my hero.”

“Oh?” Asami says, still with her lips curled upward. “Then you would be the love interest who can’t seem to keep herself out of trouble?”

“It kinda tracks.” Her girlfriend offers with sarcasm and a silly grin. “Lucky you.”

“Very.” She corrects Korra’s self-deprecation automatically.

Asami won’t say exactly what she feels about this, won’t reveal the number of times in the earlier days that she felt the least useful member of their team. Being the only Non-Bender, even with the glove it felt a deficit and use to plague her. She won’t tell Korra how much it felt like a personal failure when they were captured in the desert because she knows what her girlfriend would say. She also knows logically that her ingenuity was pivotal in extricating them from the desert after, recalls the small swell of pride she felt when Korra acknowledged her efforts to Tonraq. They all have perceived or actual shortcomings and Asami doesn’t need to be reassured over her own. She is a capable person, and she's realized there is no use comparing herself, not to the other members of their team or anyone else. Each person brings their own strengths. 

All that aside, she is still a human being. Joke or no, to be called a ‘hero’ by a woman she loves or to be told that Korra wishes she remembered that moment when Asami half-expected it to humiliate Korra instead…it means more than it should.

Sinking into the couch, she smiles at nothing making no effort to correct or hide it. Asami rests a hand on Korra’s stomach, reflecting on their exchange. “You don’t think it’s too predictable? The all-powerful half-spirit bringer of balance as the damsel in distress?”

Chuckling, Korra glances up at her. “If it is, the world’s just gonna have to deal with another formulaic love story ‘cause I’m not going anywhere.” Her girlfriend tosses out with that firm and vaguely boastful tone she uses to circumvent argument. It’s a sweet thing to hear, Korra’s absolute certainty sweeter still. “So…what’s about to happen in that book you’ve had your nose in?”

Asami considers if some part of this entire conversation was roundabout intrigue over the book’s contents or if Korra wants her to stop reading, is feeling neglected. From the expression on her girlfriend’s face, she is leaning toward their banter being a pleasant detour. It seems likely that Korra was hoping to avoid openly admitting curiosity over the story. Asami decides to test that theory.

“Well…the hero saved the girl from the barbarians, they’ve escaped the mountains, and they just got back to his castle. I’m assuming they’ll be heading to bed together since that seems to be the usual direction these books go and I’m close to the end. We’ll see.”

Korra quirks her lips to the side, poorly feigning disinterest. “That kinda story?”

Asami doubts it will be the most explicit she’s ever read. Pema loaned to her before and the woman’s tastes run pretty tame by comparison. Asami anticipates it’ll be soft and flowery and full of euphemism. There are scribe communities in the Fire Nation who publish much more risqué tales, but she’s not about to volunteer the extent of her delving as concerns erotic literature.

Korra's face scrunches at the nod Asami gives, something seeming to occur to her. “Wait, I thought you got it from Pema?! Pema reads that stuff?”

“It’s just a romance novel and Pema _does_ have four children. I’m pretty sure she’s acquainted with whatever is about to happen.” Asami retorts dryly while still being gentle.

She’s greeted with an unappreciative and scoffing laugh. “Pfft, thanks for that.”

Korra then crosses one leg atop the other, one foot dangling in the air. Watching a lip being nibbled, Asami waits for the question she can feel on the tip of her girlfriend’s tongue. 

“Do they actually write out the sex stuff?” Korra asks finally, again as if unconcerned with the reply. That gaze though is suspicious and locked on the book. “Or is it a single sentence?...like _‘and then they had sex. The end’._ ”

Asami smirks. “As masterful an ending as that would be, no. I think it’s safe to assume it’ll be more involved.” Considering their situation, she poses a question. “Would you like me to read it to you, Korra?”

There is a reaction against her leg, a physical startling, and Korra clears her throat. "I...uh," Asami keeps the giggle held in her throat…barely. “Guess I could see what the fuss is about.”

_End._


End file.
